Enough whinging already
Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is out grinding his axe against his own party once more. My, my, how they must be itching to tell him to go and, well, stuff himself and take his seat with him.
He’s cross because the Nationalist Party-owned media will not accept advertisements from the pro-divorce movement. Why does he think this is a shocker? It’s called consistency.
The Nationalist Party, whether you agree with it or not, has a position on divorce and that position is No. It cannot then promote the opposite position, which is Yes, and worse still, accept money to do so (that is what advertising is).
Some months ago, I wrote about Super One’s hopeless and crazy inconsistency – I think it is more akin to mercenary whoring, actually – in taking the government’s money to air promotional items which sang the praises of a government initiative, while tearing that initiative to shreds in its ‘news’ broadcast.
Saviour Balzan’s and Roger de Giorgio’s newspaper, Axe-Grinder Today, does the same thing. Saviour – Jeffrey’s new BF (that’s best friend, not boyfriend) is forever carping on about the fact that Axe-Grinder Today tends to get dropped from government advertising campaigns. He wants to be paid for promoting government plans positively while being free to shred those government plans for nothing.
I’m not saying that the government should advertise only with people who praise it. My advice to any advertiser is always to go where the potential market is.
I am saying something completely different: that people like Saviour look cheap, tawdry and inconsistent when they build their newspaper on gripe-stories about other people getting government money and then demand some of that money themselves.
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In the video on timesofmalta.com you can see Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando interrupting fellow pro-divorcer Evarist Bartolo who had started replying (pretty elegantly and respectfully, I must say) the Nazzjon journalist’s question about pro-divorce spots being edited at the supposedly-neutral Labour TV station.
You can see Jeffrey angrily entering into argument with Nazzjon’s journalist (not done!) spewing his typical paranoia (can’t he see that this issue is about divorce, not about him? or is it truly in fact all about him?)
Does Jeffrey really expect Nazzjon to publish his adverts as if the PN paper were a whore, taking money for doing what it otherwise wouldn’t do?
Nazzjon, if my memory doesn’t fail me, was the paper that sent Jeffrey as its ‘journalist’ in one of the last general election’s TV political broadcasts so that Jeffrey could put some kind of veneer on what he did at Mistra.
But now he attacks the newspaper that built him up to a level that gained him two seats in Parliament from hardcore PN voters even though in one fell swoop he put off thousands of middle-of-the-road voters with his Mistra affair and almost lost the election for the PN.
I am in favour of divorce but Jeffrey really makes me want to abstain.
Please don’t abstain from voting because of Jeffrey. I too can’t stand the guy. He’s arrogant, pretentious and stupid. He misjudged the situation horribly by keeping himself as the poster boy for the yes campaign. He apparently thinks he’s popular, but in reality both sides don’t like him. And he’s going to cost many votes.
But please realise that this is not about him. This is about a civil right. Put your antipathy towards him to one side, and please vote yes for the people who need it. Recent surveys are showing that it’s probably a lost cause, so every vote is needed.
This is not the time to teach this prat a lesson. He’ll get that at the next general election. If however the no vote does win, it will be some consolation watching him, humiliated, on tv. I’ll at least enjoy that.
Thanks for your valid points which I should of course consider favourably.
If, as you say, this is a lost cause (yesterday’s MT poll shows a drop of 17 points in the Yes vote since Joseph/Jeffrey managed to get their resolution through parliament to hold the referendum) then one should also question Muscat’s and Pullicino-Orlando’s strategy to throw a vote on a civil right to a deeply conservative electorate.
What kind of strategy was it to get thousands of women voters who hold a ‘lanżita daqsiex’ shouting ‘mela ma nħallihx jerġa’ jiżżewweġ!’ all the way to a No vote on the 28th?
I can never forget Super One TV during the ‘Yes to EU entry’ campaign. They used to air the pro ads, paid for by government and then air one of their own negative ones immediately following to diffuse the message of the previous ad.
Next day they had the audacity to complain that advertising funds were not being equally assigned to both TV stations. I tell you one thing, wicchom u sormhom xorta.
U ahna ic-cwiec that we didn’t tell them to stuff it. I can’t believe some friends of mine…”u ejja xi darba rridu nippruvawhom !!”.
Jesus, the thought of it alone makes me shiver.
Jeffrey can advertise with Saviour Balzan.
‘Flexx-Njuwss’ on ToM…..
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110506/local/divorce.363949
Did anybody NOT see this kind of nonsense coming?
The issue of divorce has reached pathetic levels and makes one want to vote against. Divorce is an outdated legislation fit only for those who have ended their marriage and are in some kind of gruesome relationship with a new partner who stamps his or her feet to get the same status as the former spouse. And while all this is going on, and attacking the church for its consistent stand, people will contine to flock to get married in Church in order to enjoy the pomp and Glory associated with matrimonial celebrations.
While the introduction of divorce is completely irrelevant to me, I shall vote against primarily for one reason. So that the JPO’s and the rest of the pro-divorce movement can shove their cheap crusade. We have much more sinister things to worry about instead of trying to alineate the elctorate with some decoy issue!!
The larger story is that party media should be heavily sanctioned and preferably removed from publishing and broadcasting.
The advertising money could be better spent on state broadcasting with laws prohibiting government from interfering.
The US congress is defunding PBS(US) because nationalists cannot control its agenda. This leaves the public access only to the crappy corporate controlled alternatives that even Clinton is riling against. The interests of the middle and lower classes are never properly served when state and corporations control what people should think. When they can frame each issue to serve the interest of the few. Look what happens in Italy…
How can Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando even show his face in public after the scandal surrounding the last election? He almost cost the PN power and still he shoots his mouth off.
Can’t he retain some dignity? What a clown, honestly.